It can be said that coupons or tickets present an easily transferable and disposable means for permitting one to utilize many modern day conveniences. For instance, tickets are used as a means of accessing various modes of transportation, e.g., buses and railways. It is not uncommon to find ticket dispensing machines being utilized at bus depots and train stations on which passengers desiring to ride a bus or train rely. In addition, other places which commonly dispense tickets include theaters and amusement parks. Even in some cases, vending machines employ a ticket dispensing system as a means for permitting a user to purchase various items. As a result, ticket dispensing systems are found in many aspects of society.
Other instances of coupon use can be found in arcade game halls. With many arcade games, accumulating higher scores is not merely manifested in the registering of a score total which is displayed on a game display, but also in the dispensing of coupons in the form of award tickets which may be exchanged for prizes. Specialty games, such as video games and bowling games, award varying levels of playing success to a player by dispensing a specified amount of award tickets. As a result, the endurance of a player in an arcade game hall is not only reflected in the pride of achieving higher scores but in the accumulation of greater amounts of award tickets. These award tickets may then be accumulated and exchanged for prizes or additional game playing time.
Conventional award tickets, as with most types of dispensable tickets, are dispensed in the form of individual tickets connected in series and stored within cabinets housing the arcade games. Such tickets are commonly available in rolls or packs of sufficient size to preclude frequent replacement. A typical pack includes a series of tickets, usually numbering in the thousands, each separated by a line of perforations for facilitating separation by the game player.
When installing a pack or roll of award tickets, a user must typically feed the lead end of the tickets through a dispenser located in the interior of the ticket cabinet. The dispenser automatically directs the lead end of the pack through to the exterior of the ticket cabinet for receipt by a player. With award tickets, the pack is continuously fed in increments of one or more tickets corresponding to score achievement until the pack is depleted. When the pack is depleted, the dispenser is replenished with a new pack and the process continues. There are presently a number of systems for dispensing tickets, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,926,915 to Johns. There, a skee ball machine is disclosed which includes an electronic dispenser integrated in a circuit that responds to the progress of the game as controlled by a user. When the player has attained a certain predetermined score, the electronic dispenser is actuated to begin dispensing tickets in increments corresponding to increasing score.
Other contemporary dispensers are similarly electrically actuated and are integrated with the progress of the game being played. Ticket dispensers are usually not observable to players as they are generally mounted to the back of an access door located on the front of the arcade game cabinet. The access door includes a slot aligned with the output of a ticket dispenser to permit the passage of tickets therethrough. As the tickets are dispensed commensurate with the progress of play, the tickets may be separated from the dispenser by the player and collected for later use.
Despite the seemingly easy manner in which tickets are intended to be dispensed, as a practical matter, the continuous feeding of a ticket roll or pack into an electronic dispenser is often sloppy at best. Typically, a pack of tickets is placed in a holder on the floor of the an arcade game cabinet. Because the ticket dispenser itself is preferably located at about waist level to players, there is often a large separation between the pack of tickets in the holder on the floor and the dispenser. As indicated above, the lead end of the ticket pack is fed into the receiver of the electronic dispenser. As the tickets are dispensed, the lead end of the ticket pack is pulled by the force of the actuated dispenser in an unguided fashion from the floor.
There are inherent problems with this arrangement which sometimes results in the inaccurate feeding of tickets. Due to this cumbersome arrangement, the lead end is not always guided cleanly into the dispenser. As often happens, the direct feeding of the tickets from the floor of the game cabinet causes the tickets to be lodged in the receiver of the dispenser because the tickets enter at an improper angle. In addition, when the dispenser door is opened, thereby pulling the dispenser out simultaneously, a certain portion of the tickets are pulled from the holder on the floor. When the access door is re-closed, the portion of the deployed tickets not dispensed through the dispenser causes slack in the contiguous line of tickets. This slack can also result in the tickets being misfed into the ticket dispenser, as well as possibly getting caught in the access door upon closure. The lodging of tickets results in a restriction to the free deployment of the ticket pack as desired and often results in the tickets being torn apart at the perforations due to the pulling force of the dispenser against the restricted ticket pack. This unfortunate scenario necessarily entails the temporary shutdown of the game, possibly requiring maintenance service.
In addition to inaccurate feeding problems, the fact that the pack is placed on the floor of the cabinet complicates access to the ticket pack in periods of servicing. A person reloading a dispenser or servicing a malfunctioning dispenser must place their hand deeply into the arcade cabinet in order to replace a new pack of tickets or retrieve a misfed pack. This is a cumbersome task at best.
There is therefore a need to provide a means for conveniently storing a pack of detachably connected coupons such as tickets in a location proximate to a ticket dispenser that is easily accessible. In addition, it would be novel development to incorporate within the storing means a guiding means which would significantly reduce the risk of misfeeding tickets to the dispenser.